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Friday 29th December
After another uncomfortable night in our first class carriage (the only difference is that the bunk is slightly wider and you have a room to yourself) we were wakened at about 6.30 a.m. with an announcement over the loudspeaker that we were arriving at some railway station - not ours though. We were given our complimentary breakfast (for 1st class) a bottle of water and a raisin muffin and sat back to await our arrival into K.L. Sentral. As soon as we started seeing high rise buildings we knew that we were approaching the city, we pulled into the station at 9 a.m. Taxi to the hotel was a fixed rate for different zones (R12) + 1R per piece of luggage, not a bad price for a capital city. On check in we were taken up to the Club level Reception (on the 24th floor) as we had booked an upgrade for this hotel.
Obtaining our maps of the city we set off to find the Petronas Twin Towers, out of the hotel and there it was in our face (just a five minute walk). What an impressive building - 452M tall, the towers are the centrepiece of the Kuala Lumpur City Centre, which consists of a shopping mall, 5* hotel, landscaped gardens and a mosque. You can get free tickets to visit the sky bridge on the 41st floor, but they are limited to 1200 people every day, on a first come first served basis, we were advised to get to the towers for 8.30 to obtain these tickets. Many of the shops in the shopping mall are ones that you see at any British shopping centre I.e. Marks & Spencers, Body shop and many designer names.
One of our benefits of being "Club" class in the hotel is the daily cocktails and canapés between 17.30 and 19.30 in the Club Room (the windows overlook all the main buildings and in the evening with everything lit up it is quite spectacular). We ordered our drinks and Ron had a plateful of Brie and crackers, that's him happy all week, after that we didn't need to eat anything else. An early night was on order again to catch up with deprived sleep.
Saturday 30th December
The alarm went off at 6.30 a.m. (our choice this time) for an early breakfast and walk to the Towers, we were there by 8.15 and unbelievingly the queue just seemed never ending, there must have been well over 700 people already there. By 8.40 nobody else was allowed to join the queue as the staff had estimated that all the tickets would be taken. They then came around to give you a piece of paper with your nationality on it plus how many tickets you would require, we were told to carry on queuing, we were to find out later why they do this. Whilst waiting the lady behind started talking, it turned out she was from Iran, we were invited to go and stay with her and her brother if we ever visited Tehran. As the queue snaked round, we found that people started just standing behind you or at the side as they tried unsuccessfully to join the queue for tickets - as they didn't have their piece of paper the officials told them politely to GO!!. By 9.30 we had our tickets and we were given a slot to return later that afternoon.
As we were in tourist mode we walked to the K.L. Tower, which is the worlds 4th tallest communication tower. No queues here (probably because you have to pay), we entered the lift to the observation deck at 276M where you are given a small box with earphones which gave you 360 degree video tour of the city, now we knew what some of the buildings were (also a great view of our hotel).
At our allotted time we went back to the twin towers and you were given a short presentation on the construction and design of the towers, then to one of the many lifts and we were at the 41st floor in seconds (a second a floor). We were then given a brief description of the expansion allowance (10 ft) for the sky bridge to move in the wind, again wonderful views of the city. By then we were exhausted (sore feet and aching backs) so back to the hotel for our "freebie" drinks and canapés.
Sunday 31st December
City tour beckons this morning, we had to meet in the lobby for 9 a.m. where we were picked up in the mini bus, the guide informed us that another 4 people would be joining us from a different hotel (when we got there 2 of them were still having breakfast and we had to wait 25 mins). The tour was very informative and we learned quite a lot about Malaysia's past history, especially of when Britain ruled. Our guide also told us that is was a special day for Moslems - the day after the Mecca pilgrimage, and many Moslems would be gathering to sacrifice the cow, he was delighted when we passed such a ceremony at the Police HQ and stopped the bus so that we could see a slaughtered animal (with others tethered up near by waiting for their turn), this meat is then shared amongst family and friends. When we returned at about 1 p.m. from the trip we lazed around the swimming pool until it was time for cocktails!!
Left the hotel at 7.30 to walk into the main centre of K.L. (Bukit Bintang) where the New Years Street party was to be held, it was already teeming with people of all ages. How are we going to pass the next few hours? Well we started at Pizza Hut (we are not too hungry after our canapés) and just managed to get a seat. Most of the revellers in the streets had cans of spray snow (only foam) which they took great delight in absolutely covering each other with, lots of harmless fun. We just wandered around the shopping stalls - selling everything you can imagine and up and down the streets. By 11 p.m. you could hardly move for people and eventually we settled down to watch one of the big screens at about 11.30 p.m. There was a live show on by local groups which was hosted by the capital radio station, this was broadcast onto the screens. The countdown started with 5 minutes to go until the whole place erupted at midnight and the firework display started. We were next to a monorail station and every time a train passed it sounded its siren and the noise was deafening. It was great to see family fun and entertainment and not worry about the hooligan element that is sometimes seen at large cities.
Monday 1st January
HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody. Up at the crack of dawn (no only joking) we actually slept in until about 8.30 a.m. and had a late breakfast. We wandered down to the city centre again and amazingly everything was back to normal. Just like the UK most shopping centres were open and the sales were in full swing. The biggest shopping centre in K.L. is at "Berjaya Times Square", this centre houses Malaysia's largest indoor theme park, Imax 2D and 3D cinemas, a 48 lane 10pin bowling alley and over 1000 retail outlets, we spent several hours here just browsing. Dinner was at a Malay restaurant where we sampled some noodle dishes, a huge meal for only R29 (about £4.30).
Back at the hotel with some time to spare Linda decided to check out the Spa and settled on a Swedish Oil Massage, firstly you had a relaxing hot and cold water therapy treatment and then the choice of steam or sauna room. You were then offered a drink of your choice before going to the "torture chamber", no I mean treatment room where you are pummelled all over for about 45 minutes. Feeling totally relaxed we headed to the Club Room to have our cocktails and canapés leaving us absolutely bloated, the way we are going we will come back like 2 large stuffed teddies. Later on that evening we walked to the Petronas towers where the fountain display was in action in the gardens at the rear of the tower, the whole area was full of visitors just enthralled.
Tuesday 2nd January
Today we thought we would try out the newly introduced "hop on hop off" bus (we are getting quite expert at these), they only started operating the day before in readiness for the "50 years of Celebration - Visit Malaysia 2007". The first stop was Titiwangsa Lake Garden, this is where the big wheel has been erected (based on The London Eye) and officially opens on 6th January 2007 until 31st December 2007. Next door you also have the building that is shaped similarly to Sydney Opera House, this is called Istana Budaya and is Kuala Lumpur's Palace of Culture. Just like the UK construction workers were frantically putting the finishing touches to everything in preparation for the forthcoming weekend. We then stopped at the Craft Cultural Complex where you could try out all the local crafts (if you wanted to), we opted just to look. Our final destination was Chinatown, the usual bustling, frantic, trying to sell you everything from a "Rolex" watch at R10 to chickens feet or other strange smelling concoctions. Then back to base for our usual freebies.
Wednesday 3rd January
Thought it was time to try out the different modes of transport in the city. Nearest to our hotel is the monorail which runs from KL Sentral (the main train station) and Titiwangsa (where we had been the previous day), we are somewhere in the middle. First journey to KL Sentral just to have a look around and then back to Bukit Bintang which is the nearest stop to the Aquarium. The aquarium is situated within the convention centre and could have been reached via the KLCC shopping centre. It is reputed to be the largest in the world and has a 90 M long tunnel to walk through, it's the closest we have ever been to sharks (apart from them on dodgy street corners). After a couple of hours looking at fish and Ron getting withdrawal pains as he hasn't been diving yet, we walked to the Hard Rock Café (for the usual tee shirt) and something to eat (chips, but no brown sauce).
Back at the hotel we swam a couple of laps of the hotel pool - bearing in mind it is 50m long, quite far enough to swim when you are worn out, and then "chilled out" on the sunbeds. Later on that evening we got talking to a bloke who comes from Gairloch, but is currently living in Hua Hin in Thailand, nice to hear a good broad Scots voice.
Thursday 4th January
The twin towers beckoned again so off we went at 9 a.m. to see if there were any tickets left, luckily for us it was a fairly quiet day so we had our pick of times to visit, we chose 2.15 p.m. We tried a different mode of transport today, the underground system, a stop just happened to be next door to the towers. Armed with the map we head off towards Dataran Merdeka - or Independence Square, apparently this is one of the most visited sites in the city. Here the Union Jack was lowered on 31st Aug 1957 marking the end of the British era and the birth of Malaysia. During the British reign, the square was used as a venue for cricket matches, there is also a cathedral next door. The biggest indoor market was also nearby so went bargain hunting but didn't really buy anything as we are so restricted on luggage space.
Heading back to the towers we again had magnificent views of the surrounding area, its amazing what you can see from up there. In the evening decided to try out the hotel lounge bar where "X Spice" were performing, apparently they are an up and coming group from The Philippines, the group were good but the price of drinks had us crying as it cost R28 for a small bottle of Tiger beer (Ron only had 4).
Friday 5th January
Still in Tower mode we went back to KL Tower for another view of the city from a slightly different angle. We learnt that once a year they hold the KL International Tower Jump which features B.A.S.E. jumpers leaping off the tower (please take note Ian that you could try this instead of the Norwegian cliffs). At the slopes of the tower is Kuala Lumpur's only surviving forest and covers an area of 10.5 hectares, it is home to exotic birds, butterflies, squirrels and monkeys, there is a boardwalk through the forest which we took back to street level. Back in the concrete jungle of pavements etc we walked to the shopping centre to find somewhere to have our lunch. As it was getting hotter our only option now was to head back to the hotel for some much needed R & R.
Saturday 6th January
Quiet day today preparing for our next stage - our flight to Perth via Singapore. The lasting images we will have of Asia are firstly of how friendly most people are, they could not do enough to help you. Also how all the different cultures blend together and lastly it makes you appreciate traffic in Britain when you see how bad it is in the cities of Bangkok (especially) and Kuala Lumpur. In K.L. it seems every bus stop is used as a car park, and most pavements are full of parked motorbikes or scooters. Our final note is please appreciate the train service in the UK as in Thailand and especially Malaysia with its appalling timekeeping. One thing Linda won't miss about Asia is the "Ladies Loos" nuff said about that. Signing off now from Asia - hello Australia.
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